Painting lined with painted fiberglass

This is in amplification of Barbara Appelbaum's (Conservation
DistList Instance: 10:49 November 21, 1996)

Dick Buck wasn't the only one guilty of not publishing enough!  The
question of aluminum paint on the back of wax linings on canvas is
extremely interesting.  I was an undergraduate student at Oberlin
1958-1962 and visited the ICA repeatedly.  I don't remember seeing
any of these "silver linings" in the shop.  I wonder if it wasn't in
vogue before 1958?

It might have come from practice at the Fogg or at the National
Gallery London; both were places where Dick Buck spent time prior to
Oberlin.  My suspicion is that Dick thought his greatest
contribution could be made in the area of panel painting treatment,
and so he simply didn't publish much on wax lining.  Del Spurlock is
gone, Vic Covey is gone; people who might shed light on the question
would include Masako Koyano (who spent time with DIck in the 1964-68
era), Ross Merrill, Caroline Keck*, Sue Sack*, Bob Feller, Paul
Arnold (at Oberlin; the printmaking shop was in the same corridor as
ICA!), and I can't think of many others, although Jean Portell*
might be able to shed some light on the question.  * = present at
EPC.

The aluminum paint thing did, however, get mentioned in the
Exhibition of Painting Conservation (EPC) which was held at the
Brooklyn Museum in 1962. In an article by Dick Buck, "The Use of
Moisture Barriers on Panel Paintings" (unpaginated) he says in a
section on The use of moisture barrier materials; "Other factors
than inherent permeability of materials affect the efficiency of the
moisture barrier:

   "THICKNESS:...

   "A special case is the use of flaked aluminum powder as a
    pigment. During the application of aluminum paint surface
    tension causes the flakes to "leaf", that is, to form an
    overlapping layer. The efficiency of aluminum paint as a
    moisture barrier is increased many times by a second coating
    because the leafing has a better chance to fill all gaps and to
    make a continuous metallic layer."

I knew it was in there somewhere!

Tom Chase

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:50
                 Distributed: Monday, November 25, 1996
                       Message Id: cdl-10-50-003
                                  ***